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KEO Marketing Blog

Online Reviews Just as Trustworthy as Personal Recommendations, Study Shows

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Sheila

The importance and value of online reviews in on its way to the top and can even make or break your business. Last week I shared a study that showed the Science Behind Google Places Rankings where Place pages that had 5 or more positive reviews had a significantly higher SERP ranking than a page with less than 5 reviews, even if they were all positive.

In this study, dubbed the Local Consumer Review Survey, shows that the benefits of positive reviews extend beyond search engine optimization and local search rankings. In fact, 72% of consumers surveyed stated that they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. This online study completed in March 2012 surveyed 2,900 local consumers throughout the US, Canada and UK and compared data from the same survey that was conducted in 2010.

local_reviews

Online reviews give consumers quick and easy access to information which guides them in making an informed decision before going out and patronizing a new business. The continued increase in mobile usage (smartphones and tablets) means that more consumers will be searching for and finding local businesses online. Having positive reviews throughout Google, Yelp and concise testimonials available on your web properties is becoming increasingly important to consumers and quite valuable to business owners.

To take a look at the full survey and other key findings, visit Search Engine Land or contact KEO Marketing today to find out how local search optimization or mobile search optimization can help consumers find your business.

Posted in local search, search engine optimization | Tagged , ,

Most Critical Development in Business Social Media Rolls Out This Week

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Sheila

What will be quite possibility the most critical development in the business social media space in 2012 rolls out this Friday, March 30. Facebook is officially launching its Timeline feature for business pages and although you might have already enabled this feature in the past few weeks, you still need to adapt how you are managing your brand on Facebook and what you are doing to engage visitors.

Timeline’s new features allow businesses to have a greater connection with users on Facebook and truly develop their business’ social media network. Take a look at this infographic from Marketo showing 5 important changes to consider when you enable your brand’s Facebook Timeline page.

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For more information on Facebook Timeline for Business Pages, take a look at our post, Facebook Business Pages: Making a Milestone out of Timeline or contact KEO Marketing today with any questions regarding business social media.

Posted in social media | Tagged , ,

The Science Behind Google Places Rankings

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Sheila

google_placesHave you ever wondered how Google Places rankings were determined and if that one-star review had a negative impact on your ranking? Bizible, recently produced the conclusions of a Google Places Ranking Factors study that that had conducted studying 30 potential ranking factors in 22 cities and 22 local categories and how local search optimization impacted the rankings. Although their research methodology might not be perfect, their discoveries do answer a few interesting questions about Google Places rankings.

Here are a few key takeaways, directly from the Local Ranking Factors Study.

Key Factors to Improve Google Places Ranking (Integrated in main SERP)

  1. Having the primary category match a broader category of the search category. For example, primary category is set to “restaurant” and the search category was “pizza.”
  2. Having the search category or a synonym in the business name.
  3. Having the search category or a synonym in “at a glance.”
  4. Having five or more Google reviews. Five is the key number, any more than that did not seem to impact the ranking.
  5. Having at least one photo.

Listings with all of these signals showed an improvement in ranking of about three positions, which is fairly high considering that on average there were five integrated local results in the main search page. Moving up three out of five positions is significant.

Key Factors to Improve Google Places Ranking (Pure Local Results)

  1. Having five or more Google reviews.
  2. Having the search city in “at a glance.”
  3. Having the search category or a synonym in in review content.
  4. Having the search category or a synonym in the business description.
  5. Having the search category or a synonym in “at a glance.”
  6. Having the primary category match the search category.
  7. Having the search category or a synonym in the business name.
  8. Having a secondary business category that was a broader category than the search category was associated with. i.e. secondary category is “restaurant” when searching for “Seattle pizza.”
  9. Having at least one photo.
  10. Google Places Page is owner verified.

Listings with all of these signals showed an improvement in ranking of about nine positions.  Given that they were in the top 30, an improvement of nine is also significant.

Although this study is a helpful insight into what factors may impact your local search ranking, it is important to remember that Google’s ranking algorithm is constantly changing, quite complex and not every data point could be taken into consideration during this study. However, it does clearly make the case that having a complete and well-optimized Google Places Page does significantly impact your chances of being found within local and universal search.

For additional insight into local search optimization, you can view Bizible’s Local Ranking Factors Study in its entirety or contact KEO Marketing today.

Posted in local search, search engine marketing | Tagged , ,

 

 

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